


Five times Jim's heart was broken.

by dayspassquicker



Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-14
Updated: 2011-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-16 23:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/170324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dayspassquicker/pseuds/dayspassquicker





	Five times Jim's heart was broken.

1.  
He comes home early from Dartmouth to put his father's affairs in order, only to find out there's nothing left to manage. He stays to help pack up the house; spends afternoons wrapping wedding china in old newspaper while his mother chain-smokes cigarettes out on the porch. A few weeks later they find a two bedroom apartment that is manageable if he picks up that traineeship at the bank. He looks at the date as he signs the lease, realizes he's missed two finals. Not that it matters now.

2.  
1951\. They push through to Inchon, tired and battered, and everything goes quiet for a while. He lies in his tent and tries not to think of the bodies in his wake.

3  
They hadn't even been trying. Jim wants to tell her that it's okay, that she's lost something the size of a piece of gum, but he's not sure it will make her feel better. That look on her face, though. Like she's failed him.

4.  
Murphy sits next to him at the 10am meeting and he can smell the alcohol on her breath. It's not the first time.

5.  
He was prepared for everything after Doris was diagnosed, read all the literature. He expected her fast decline, the way she sometimes didn't recognize him when she first woke up. Even the funeral was carried out with minimal fuss. A small service with no speeches. Everything said. Everything finished.

Halfway through the day, distracted, he'll still go to call her. In the mornings he'll reach across the bed, forty-five years of habit, arms stretching out into nothing.


End file.
